Embodiments of the inventive concepts described herein relate to a semiconductor memory, and more particularly, relate to a storage device and an operating method thereof.
A semiconductor memory device is a storage device which is fabricated using semiconductors such as, but not limited to, silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and indium phosphide (InP). Semiconductor memory devices are classified into volatile memory devices and nonvolatile memory devices.
The volatile memory devices may lose contents stored therein at power-off. The volatile memory devices include the following: a static RAM (SRAM), a dynamic RAM (DRAM), and a synchronous DRAM (SDRAM). The nonvolatile memory devices may retain stored contents even at power-off. The nonvolatile memory devices include the following: a read only memory (ROM), a programmable ROM (PROM), an electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), an electrically erasable and programmable ROM (EEPROM), a flash memory device, a phase-change RAM (PRAM), a magnetic RAM (MRAM), a resistive RAM (RRAM), and a ferroelectric RAM (FRAM).
A storage device is implemented using a nonvolatile memory. The storage device consists of a nonvolatile memory and a memory controller to access the nonvolatile memory and communicate with an external host device.
The storage device is mounted on various mobile devices, such as a smart phone and a smart pad and is implemented in the form of product such as a solid state drive. The performance of reliability of the storage device affects the whole performance and reliability of various devices that use the storage device. Thus, there is continuously required a research on improving the performance and reliability of the storage device.